AMD LIVE! Home Cinema platform debuts for a second time

Aside from the obvious PR blitz, we can't really figure out what AMD is doing here. You see, its AMD LIVE! Home Cinema platform was actually introduced way back in January of 2007, yet it seems pretty confident that this stuff is brand new at Computex. Whatever the case, we can now assume that a new aspect has been added in to "enable solution providers to address the growing home entertainment arena through a consistent, highly-capable design." The package also supports Phenom X4 9000 / X3 8000 CPUs and ATI Radeon HD graphics, and it's obviously designed to be used on HTPCs, mini-towers and otherwise vanilla desktops. If you're interested in wading through the mess that is the press release about this "new" technology, be our guest via the read link below.

[Pochi @ Jun 4th 2008 10:16AM]

I hate all these shitty little buzznames.

Think there will ever be a system with both LIVE! and GAME! capabilities!? Or would that just be too "AWESOME!" for words?

[Zach G. @ Jun 4th 2008 10:34AM]

I am waiting to get an AMD rig until the AMD LULZ! platform debuts.

[Derk Kooi @ Jun 4th 2008 10:36AM]

It all just sounds like "FAIL!" to me. I iz nVidia/Intel fanboy.

[Pochi @ Jun 4th 2008 10:41AM]

I think most reasonable "PC people" have become Intel/nVidia fans in the past couple of years.

[Derk Kooi @ Jun 4th 2008 10:47AM]

Yes and there are a lot of good reasons for that.

1. PureVideo HD, the PureVideo decoder is really, really good, awesome quality and it offloads the CPU a lot, which means that you're mediacenter just got a lot more LIVE! (You officially need to pay more money for it, but come on, pirate bay ftw)
2. AMD needs 2 GPU's too match 1 GPU from nVidia.
3. AMD just can't match the power of both nVidia and Intel, so the only good market for their cards and processors are low cost systems, but as I stated above, that just doesn't include mediacenters.

[Bill @ Jun 4th 2008 11:09AM]

Nah, actually AMD-ATI's graphics solutions are quite good. I have an ATI HD 2600 XT card in my Intel PC and it handles all of the HD content I can throw it at just fine.

ATI's always been well known for their superb video processing; which Nvidia is just now catching up to.

[404 @ Jun 4th 2008 11:22AM]

Bill: Ditto. nVidia might be ruling the performance roost, but if you're not gasping to get 99FPS instead of 90 there's plenty of good stuff available from AMD.

[andy @ Jun 4th 2008 3:20PM]

I buy ATI because at the ~150 price point, it's competitve with Nvidia, and ATI hasn't back stabbed me on drivers.

I buy AMD because at the sub ~200 and under price point, similarly priced Intel offerings simply cannot compete with AMD's choices.

I end up with AMD motherboards because they have good driver support and good feature support. Nvidia chips always have disarrayed drivers and features.

I just find that I have a better experience for my needs with AMD/ATI then with intel/nvidia.

Now one of my laptops is Intel/nvidia, and it works great. Intel seems more competitive there, but in desktop choices, AMD/ATI is a no-brainer for a complete, no hassle, bang for your buck platform.

[Ryan Karolak @ Jun 4th 2008 10:48AM]

OOooh! With 3DNow?

[Voodoo @ Jun 4th 2008 10:50AM]

Most "reasonable" PC people have been using the best tools for the job which until now have generally been Intel/Nvidia. However, for building a near silent HTPC, AMD seems to be giving us some really good alternatives.

[d0od @ Jun 4th 2008 10:55AM]

errr the bug fixed phenom quads out perform intel.....

[Oinquer @ Jun 4th 2008 11:08AM]

Intel/nvidia is this...Intel/Nvidia is that...
im glad we are all rich....
cause im not...
that why im still with AMD/ATI....they offer less powerfull solutions...but they also got the best bang for your buck, period.
When i start getting a good wage ill switch to Intel/Nvidia, if they keep in front.
and i dont see you complaining about those stupid stickers...
Windows Vista Ready on machines with Celerons from Intel, its just these from AMD...ohh...welll, maybe im such a fanboy...but at least im a poor fanboy...

[matt @ Jun 4th 2008 11:22AM]

I'm sorry, but I think you're all so blinded by the Intel fanboiness and inibility to think outside the gamer mindset that you're missing the point of AMD's business strategy. It's not just here, but with a number of their recent decisions, AMD has gradually been working towards light weight monolithic computing solutions. First they moved the memory controller on chip, then they announced the Fusion which will incorporate a GPU and a PCIe controller on chip, and I bet their long term goal is an entire motherboard-on-a-chip solution. Imagine, a full blown PC the size of an iPod. I think this is just another intermediate step on that path. What it sounds like to me is they integrated more 'home theater' functionality into fewer packages (aka integrated circuits) and thus further cut down on the package count required to provide a full HD entertainment computer. This means smaller form factor, lower cost, lower power consumption, and thus less heat generation. This is completely brilliant, and is exactly the way the IC industry is going as a whole.

Intel on the other hand, hasn't made any strides to do such a thing, and are still depending on a plethora of packages. This means bigger, slower, more expensive, and more power hungry motherboards in your future. Take the Atom for an example; do you really think it can ever compete in the embedded market when there are faster and more power efficient ARM and POWER based computer-on-a-chip and motherboard-on-a-chip packages already out there? Unless Intel learns this soon, they won't stand a chance outside of gaming circles in the new ultra compact and energy efficient computing world.

[Jake Ludington @ Jun 5th 2008 9:15PM]

Actually this is not vaporware and is shipping this month:
http://www.jakeludington.com/media_center_pc/20080605_amd_live_home_cinema_changes_home_theather_pc_market.html